TOWN COUNCILS: EVALUATION OF BENCHMARKS

Abstract

In today's competitive climate, where technology, global travel and cross-cultural sharing of goods and ideas can homogenize many products, it is service that distinguishes one organization from another. As such, it is necessary to provide quality service to customers. This applies to town councils' maintenance function as well. In order to achieve good quality service, it is essential to constantly review and evaluate the service standards or benchmarks. Benchmarking of maintenance standards is relatively new in the local town council maintenance sector. Evaluation of benchmarks is part of the benchmarking process in attaining quality service performance. This study determines the importance of quality service as well as analyzes the maintenance benchmarks of town councils, drawing from the expectations of the residents. At the same time, town councils' performance level is evaluated through the satisfaction level of residents. The survey findings show that as a whole, town councils have done well in their maintenance functions. This can be concluded from a high percentage of respondents being satisfied with various maintenance services. It is also found that town councils' maintenance benchmarks are of acceptable standards; nevertheless they need improvements based on the expectations of the respondents.